CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2014
| Author | Millman, Bridget Teresa |
|---|---|
| Title | 'OF THE PEOPLE': CIVIL SOCIETY AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN POST-TRANSITIONAL DEMOCRATIC POLICYMAKING |
| Summary | Democratic societies have traditionally primarily enabled citizen participation in the domain of electoral politics. However, the ‘participatory revolution’ introduced new opportunities and demands for citizen engagement in a broader array of political activity, and a corresponding ‘deliberative turn’ in political science has sought to integrate the interests of non-state stakeholders in governance activities such as policy making. Civil society groups are increasingly viewed as key stakeholders in the policy making process, which poses theoretical and practical questions regarding the potential for their intermediation between citizens and states. Existing research on the topic has generally focused on contexts of longstanding democracies. Yet recent analyses suggest that civil society actors in post-Communist Europe are more involved in policy making processes than previously thought. This project analyzes secondary literature on public participation, democratic deliberation and civil society, in conjunction with primary data from interviews with civil society representatives in Serbia and Poland, in order to explain the prospects, opportunities and challenges for civil society participation in post-transitional contexts. It expands the understanding of civil society as an intermediary force, finding that civil society actors in both countries deploy a variety of methods in seeking to draw political attention to policy needs; to influence policy making processes; and to hold state institutions accountable for policy outcomes. |
| Supervisor | Schneider, Carsten |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2014/millman_bridget.pdf |
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